Taylor Wimpey Queens Hills Norwich Help!

mmaark · 22 January 2015 at 4:26PM

Hi all, We are looking to buy a Taylor Wimpey home on the Queens Hills estate, Its up for 260k for a 4 bed home, Its not fully built yet and has planned to be finished in June. does anyone or has anyone negotiated a reduction on the asking price? Also with the "extras" this is quite expensive also, can these be negotiated? We like the house a lot and we know about the possible delays in the traffic etc, but has anyone got more info on the traffic, coming in and out of the area, we both leave for work at about 7am and return about 6pm.
How is the area at Queens Hills? Is it a nice place to live?
We know there will be snagging to be sorted on a new build but has anyone recently had any trouble with TW with the snagging being fixed etc.
Any help about any of this would be great and thank you in advance.

mmcg · 22 January 2015 at 5:34PM

I am in the process of buying with TW and managed to negotiate around 6k of extras (carpet, turf, appliances) if that helps u any

nidO · 22 January 2015 at 6:14PM

mmaark wrote: »

but has anyone got more info on the traffic, coming in and out of the area, we both leave for work at about 7am and return about 6pm.

Bad. Think bad, then think worse than that, particularly when trying to get out of the estate. Assuming you do know the road in and out of the area, if you try to leave at the wrong busy time of day you can often find yourself joining the end of a stationary queue at the ambulance station, going all the way to the Longwater roundabout.
Bad enough that the residents did this:

http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/57572

Bad enough that over 4 years ago Queens Hills was being used as an example of how not to develop a large site because of the traffic (among other) problems, and the site has only gotten bigger since then with the same road serving it:

http://www.eveningnews24.co.uk/news/avoid_another_queens_hills_at_three_score_council_warned_1_686549

99.5% of times of the day you'll wonder what all the fuss is about as the A47 is a 2 minute drive away, the other 0.5% you'll be bashing your brains out on your steering wheel in frustration.

FWIW I don't live there but know a couple of people who do, and have been caught up in the queues plenty of times going to/from the retail park.

Although it's not really an answer to the question you asked, have you considered looking at TW's Hampden View site just down the road?

You should generally be able to negotiate a good few grand either off the asking price or in free extras.

mmaark · 22 January 2015 at 10:14PM

Thank you for your quick responses.
Will definitely take these into consideration. Lots to think about before committing to buying a new build in that area.
They make the houses look really great but have to look at the wider picture.

kimbyanne · 22 January 2015 at 11:19PM

As someone who has recently escaped Costessey, I will tell you now - DO NOT BUY A HOUSE AT QUEENS HILL!

I didn't live on Queens Hill, I lived near it (just off Richmond Road). I also know many people who do live on Queens Hill, every single one of them regrets moving there.

The estate is HUGE and only has one road in and out. You can imagine what the road is like in the morning and evening as people go and come home from work. It is also a major safety hazard as if that road gets blocked, fire engines, police, ambulances, etc cannot get through. The estate was meant to be built with two roads but for some reason only the one was built.

The green areas past the ambulance depot and on the way up to Queens Hill are often used as sites for gypsies. I have seen endless burned out cars there and once even a burned out police car (the police left a car there to stop the gypsies gaining access to the land, they torched the car...)

The traffic on Dereham Road is horrendous at pretty much any time of day. I would bus to and from work, and despite there being a bus lane down the majority of Dereham Road, it would take me 45 minutes to get to work in the morning, that is forty five minutes to get four miles. Coming home was even worse, as there is no bus lane coming back.

Driving really is not an option, you will be stuck in traffic all the way back from Queens Hill down to the roundabout near Bayer/KwikFit. If you wanted to be at work for say 9am, you would have to leave the house before 7.30am to get there in time. I would get the bus at 8am and get in for around 8.50am and as I said, that is using bus lanes.

Costessey is being hugely over developed. Dereham Road is a terrible road anyway, without more and more houses being built at Queens Hill, the development near Roundwell Doctors, the development the other side of the road (which by the way now has planning permission to go all the way back to the A47, I think they may have started building already actually). Costessey cannot support this amount of extra people, not just for the roads, the general infrastructure of doctors, schools, etc. They are also building a load of new houses just down the road in Bowthorpe soon.

Another thing about Queens Hill is, there is a fair amount of anti-social behaviour. I think due to the sheer amount of people living there, its bound to happen. Everyone is very close together, the houses are not spaced particularly far apart and one of the biggest issues people complain about is lack of parking.

To top it off, Taylor Wimpey is one of the worst house builders I have seen. I lived in a Taylor Wimpey house for ten years and it was one of the shoddiest houses I have seen. They may have upped their game since then, but be warned

I know I sound very negative, but honestly - I moved away from Costessey in November after surviving there for three years. I hated every single second of it - the traffic was horrendous - a simple trip two minutes up the road to Sainsbury's could only be done at certain times of the day unless we wanted to wait in traffic for 20 minutes just to get up the road. When any event was on at the Norfolk Showground, we couldn't drive anywhere because traffic was queued up so much. Certain areas of Costessey are really rough/dodgy now, quite a high crime rate - Queens Hill isn't exactly the nicest place in Costessey either.

I would never ever recommend anyone move there. I shudder just thinking about still living there....

shaneshaneshane · 23 January 2015 at 12:15AM

Can't say much about TW housing but I can't think of a worse place in Norwich for rush hour traffic than Queens Hills/Longwater, competing with that traffic 5/7 days a week would be enough to put me off, take a drive up there at rush hour times if you haven't experienced it.

Oh and Queens Hills is incredibly tight for space, the houses are so close together, but you obviously already know/have seen this.

m1kjm · 13 February 2015 at 2:31PM

Just in case anyone is still considering the notion of buying there:

http://www.edp24.co.uk/news/schoolchildren_show_how_a47_crash_brought_queen_s_hill_to_standstill_this_morning_1_3955489

clippy_girl · 13 February 2015 at 4:11PM

I have a colleague who lives in bowthorpe and it often takes her 45 mins to get to work at county hall. whether she goes down dereham road towards city or the other way on the a47 the traffic is awful. i avoid that area at all costs even though my satnav says the quickest route for me to get home is off the a47 at longwater and down dereham road, i continue on and get off at trowse.

i had heard they were supposed to be connecting the estate to the roundabout before longwater but that obv has not happened, not sure why.

i dropped an ebay sale off there a while ago and the estate is very vast. I suppose you get the same issues with all new massive estates as lots of properties are bought as btl so people tend to not take care of them so much.

Have you looked at the new cringleford estate? imagine transport wise that would be much easier as even though you will have traffic in and out of norwich you don't have a retail park competing with traffic.

samsam89 · 17 February 2015 at 3:56PM

Totally agree with the comments.

If you work in Norwich then the painstaking commute will always take an age, it's a given. But do you really want to have to deal with it every time you want to leave the house?

My advice would be to look in the surrounding villages, or iirc they're building in Hethersett, so that might be worth a look.